A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
When the ice starts to shiver
all across the reflecting basin
or water-lily leaves
dissect a simple surface
the word ‘drowning’ flows through me.
You built a glassy floor
that held me
as I leaned to fish for old
hooks and toothed tin cans,
stems lashing out like ties of
silk dressing-gowns
archangels of lake-light
gripped in mud.
Now you hand me a torn letter.
On my knees, in the ashes, I could never
fit these ripped-up flakes together.
In the taxi I am still piecing
what syllables I can
translating at top speed like a thinking machine
that types out ‘useless’ as ‘monster’
and ‘history’ as ‘lampshade’.
Crossing the bridge I need all my nerve
to trust to the man-made cables.
The blades on that machine
could cut you to ribbons
but its function is humane.
Is this all I can say of these
delicate books, scythe-curved intentions
you and I handle? I’d rather
taste blood, yours or mine, flowing
from a sudden slash, than cut all day
with blunt scissors on dotted lines
like the teacher told.
A few random poems:
- Intimidation by Satish Verma
- At the Zoo poem – A. A. Milne poem
- Ольга Берггольц – Второй разговор с соседкой
- Behind a Wall poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Rosslyn To The Prime Minister by Graham Rowlands
- Владимир Маяковский – Серые! К вам орем вниз мы… (РОСТА №313)
- Song—Fragment—Leezie Lindsay by Robert Burns
- Legacy by Vinko Kalinić
- Song Of The Peri
- Head of a Smiling Young Woman in Three-Quarter View by Raj Arumugam
- A Lover poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats
- Иннокентий Анненский – Из окна
- Низами Гянджеви – Лишь с луной сравниться
- Владимир Корнилов – Незадача
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Song Of The Kasak poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Roussalka poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Poet poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Memorial poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Last Flower poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The High Road In Winter poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Duel poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Delibash poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Coming Of Winter poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Coach Of Life poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Caucas poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Black Shawl poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Bakchesarian Fountain poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Tempest poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Tatiana’s Letter poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Solitude poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Remembrance poem – Alexander Pushkin
- On Count Voronstov poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Old Man poem – Alexander Pushkin
- O Sing, Fair Lady, When With Me poem – Alexander Pushkin
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012) was an American poet, essayist, and feminist.